Arcane Apocalypse

Two things happened all at once. 

First, Mia heard the leather of the couch — the only thing standing between her and a murderous bird — tearing. With a start she yanked her foot behind the cover too, almost having left an ankle out for the bird to cut up.

Second, she heard a sound that somehow sounded like the primal roar of a wounded beast one moment and the shriek of a prepubescent girl the second. Discounting the possibility that a banshee, or some other mythical creature snuck into the apartment while she was scrambling for her life, she assumed the origin of that sound was Mark.

Well, he was at least awake now. Good to know. 

She took a peek out, not towards the monster, but the kitchen table to the right of the couch. Mark stood there in all of his four foot five beardy glory, eyes wide and mouth open. Frozen. 

Shit. Mia swallowed the lump in her throat. The monster stopped vandalising the poor couch, and Mark’s screech was hard to miss. He was probably in a stare-down with the thing. Shit. 

Mia glanced at the door, standing just halfway between her and the kitchen table. Could she run? The door was closed, but if she was fast enough and the bird … occupied itself with fighting Mark, she might make it.

It was tempting, oh so tempting to just bolt for the door as fast as her legs could take her. It would give her by far the best chances of not being turned into bird feed.

Then she glanced back at Mark. He might be the closest thing she had to a friend. No matter how much the heartless little devil on her shoulder whispered into her ears to take that first step towards the door, she didn’t move. 

Fuck me, I’m so going to die. She took a moment to lament before giving herself a mental slap on the cheek and popping her head up above the couch. 

The bird stood in the middle of the room, about one or two metres away from the couch and seemed to tilt its head curiously at Mark like he was some fascinating critter. Mia pulled back just as the monster’s head snapped to the side to face her.

It let out a chitter while Mia wracked her brain. Should she shout to get Mark out of his stump? Throw something at him? Rush over and tackle him? Maybe she coul-

“What the fuck?!” Mark shouted.

Is there something in its eyes that breaking eye-contact was enough to snap him out of it? Mia wondered belatedly, then dismissed it. It didn’t matter. 

She poked her head out to stare at her roommate, who now hid behind the kitchen table. Somehow, Mia doubted some flimsy pieces of wood used for chair-legs would hold up well against the bird.

“Mark,” she hissed at him and he jerkily turned to her. But before she could do much else, the bird seemed to have had enough.

With an eagle-like screech, it flapped its wings and pounced like a cat at the hiding Mark, easily going over the table and landing on the cabinet on the other side. Now it stood, towering over the cowering Mark. 

That the thing seemed to revel in their fear was probably the one thing that kept their blood and organs on the right side of their skin. It clicked its talons, like those damned raptors from Jurassic Park and struck out with a wing at Mark.

Mia forgot herself and shrieked, bolting out from behind the couch and reaching for … something. Her hand landed on a chair. It would do. But she was slow, far too slow. With all the time it took for her to even reach the table, the bird had already struck twice.

Mark, God bless his quick thinking, flopped down to his stomach the moment the bird struck and scuttled under the table. Instead of him, the chair slept on one leg of the table bore the monster’s wrath.

Mia stumbled back as wooden shrapnel flew through the air. The bird’s strike had an unnatural weight behind it. It was less like a slash with a kitchen knife — that she had expected based on its size and feathers — and more like a ripped lumberjack went wild on their furniture.

If that thing hits me, I’m dead. Mia’s hands shook uncontrollably, but she was already reaching down and grabbing onto Mark’s hands to drag him out as the bird lazily struck out twice more, turning chunks of the table to rubble with each one.

“You’re fucking heavy,” she breathed, leaning back to pull with her entire body. 

Mia made eye-contact with the bird, still perched on the cabinet. Her eyes widened and she let go of Mark, falling on her back just as the monster flew by. Those vicious claws passed so close to her face, to her eye, that she expected to lose them both.

Her back hit the floor with a soft thud and all her nerves burst alight with pain, but adrenaline did its job perfectly and she rolled to her side after only a moment. She rolled into a crouch, hands on the floor to stabilise her and for a moment she felt like a feral cat staring down a bear.

Just that the bear was a knee-height eagle-monster with an entire kitchenette’s worth of knives spread along its wings. But the power disparity fit. All she could do was hiss and look tall, but in the end, she’d be lunch. 

A chair crashed into the bird. Mia stared, uncomprehending.

“FUCK YOU!” Mark swore, then, just as the bird crawled out of the rabble, another burst to shreds right atop its gleaming metal head. Mark wheezed, eyes bloodshot as he stared at the shifting rubble and the very alive bird underneath it. “Fuck.”

“Run!” Mia said, but she took her own advice even before she finished speaking and bolted for the door. Saving Mark was one thing, fighting to the death with a fucking monster that crawled out of some deranged author’s nightmare was another thing entirely. 

Mia reached the door in a second, fast enough that it would have surprised her had she been paying any attention to it. She fumbled to turn the key still in the lock, but her hands shook like a newborn fawn.

Mark flicked her hands aside and turned the keys, then tore the door open without a second wasted and rushed through. Mia heard an enraged shriek behind her and rubble being thrown off just as she stepped out.

Mark gave her a rough shove, sending her sprawling onto the hallway floor, then slammed the door shut behind her. Not a moment later, a gleaming wing burst through the wooden door.

Mia, having just heard wood shattering behind her, threw herself further down the hallway. Luckily, she only saw a half-stuck wing only a quarter of the way through the door when she turned back and a very frozen Mark standing with his nose only an inch away from its tip.

“Move,” she hissed at him. “Get away from the damned door.”

Mia stood with her knees bent, back hunched and eyes trained on the shuddering wing that the bird was trying, and failing, to free. She felt like a spring, coiled to the limit and a moment away from snapping.

“What do we do?” Mark whispered, carefully inching away from the door.

“Run?” Mia asked, glancing to both sides, finding only dark hallways. It was a stupid idea, she berated herself. She saw the literal horde of the damned things down on the street. Where could they run? … Also, why was everything so silent-

Sounds smashed into Mia’s mind with the power of a freight train. Shouts, screams, thuds and crashes barged into her head without care and announced themselves with no rime or reason. It was a chaos of noises, each new one sending a prickle of pain right into her brain.

Mia felt a slight ache growing in her skull, much smaller than she would have expected with such a mind-fuck, but she didn’t have time to care about that at the moment. She shut it out, shoved the obnoxious intruders out, and slammed the doors shut.

There was silence again, blessed silence. What the hell was that?!

Mia’s eyes were wide and her breathing ragged, chest rising and falling rapidly as her gaze darted around. Were those sounds real? Did she finally go crazy? Why did sounds hurt? They weren’t supposed to hurt. 

“That was one nasty bird,” Mark said, continuing in a whisper, as if that would save them from the furious monster. “I doubt it's alone. Maybe we should look for a room without windows? Or find a hammer. A bigass hammer and turn it into scrap metal.”

There was a grin on his face as he said the last part, one nasty enough that combined with his bearded, rugged face that Mia had a hard time remembering that this was Mark. The dwarf with a bloodthirsty grin who was already stalking off towards the stairwell.

“There is supposed to be a storage room around here,” he mumbled, then he was gone around the corner.

Mia stared at the corner, finding it harder to come to grasp with the new, non-wimpy Mark than the iron-bird that tried to murder her just a minute ago. 

The stuck wing moved from side to side and the door gave an agonised groan, signalling that it wasn’t long for the world.

Well, shit. Mia thought, taking two further steps back and weighing her options. Murderbird was fast and probably had some silly monster sense to track her down even if she tried to hide. The ground floor was a big no-no. What if Jeff’s ‘mighty’ defences already gave way to a monster horde that was now waiting down there just for silly girls like her to run down there, fleeing from their bird pals?

Yeah, she was not going to be a two in one food-delivery-cum-fast-food for those fuckers. Upwards, then? There was probably a swarm of those murderbirds on the roof, so that was out too.

“I’m fucked either way, aren’t I?” Mia mumbled.

If only her stupid magic worked. How was it fair that monsters were real and very enthusiastic about eating her, but her magic was buggy?

What sort of dumb idiot of a system developer decided there was a specific way in which one had to tickle mana for it to do magic? What was next, nibble on dragon dung to get fire magic? Finger a power outlet to get lightning?

Maybe because she was halfway sure she was going to die, she decided to give magic another go. Maybe the last one she had. Who knew? Maybe she would get to brag in the afterlife that she got off a single spell before she got turned into sashimi?

She mentally browsed through her tiny list of available spells and quickly narrowed it down to two top contenders. Arcane Bolt and Arcane Blast.

The rest were defensive, utility, or did silly things like blowing her up — what the hell? — so these two were the only possible choices. Her implanted knowledge told her Bolt chucked a vaguely bullet shaped arcane blob at the enemy, while Blast did the same, except it exploded on contact.

Since she preferred going out with a bang, and not with a plop, she chose the second spell.

While her runic model lazily rearranged itself into the shape of the Arcane Blast magic circle, Mia wondered for probably the hundredth time whether the lightning fried her brain.

I should just run and hide in a room, barricade the door and windows. I’m not a fighter. I shouldn’t be doing this. Fuck. Why do I pay taxes if the damned military doesn’t protect me from man-eating birds? What was I thinking?! I should have run the moment that thing crashed through the window. Jeff looked strong. Maybe he just finished killing his own monstrous home intruders and is on his way to clear out the rest.

She knew she was being stupid, trying magic of all things in a life and death fight. Her feet ached to be running down the hallway already. Yet, she stayed and waited for the runic model to settle. It took all but three seconds, three seconds, during which Mia decided she was an idiot.

Still, she might as well try it again while she was at it.

She carefully nudged what felt like the appropriate amount of mana to her fingertip and went back to banging her head against the wall that was actually getting the magic to work.

She flexed every muscle she had in her chest and stomach, somehow imagining she might stumble upon the ethereal, magical muscle that would allow her to finally resonate that damned runic model with her mana.

Alas, all that gave her was a fair bit of embarrassment as she groaned like a loon in the middle of the dark hallway. She tried poking at it mentally again, nudging, pushing, shoving and even tickling. Nothing worked. Nothing.

Mia growled under her breath, eying the wing and the widening hole in her poor door. She doubted it would last another ten seconds.

Work dammit! Mia ground her teeth and coiled the hand, holding the mana like a claw. It didn’t help, but she imagined strangling her rebellious pool of mana with it. Or the bird.

That thing had crashed through her window, gave her the scare of her life, almost made her piss herself, ruined half her furniture and was now trying to kill her.

There was a reason she chose Arcane Blast for this. She wanted to blow the pompous bird to kingdom come, blast it into so many pieces, not even its feathery mother would recognise the remains.

Mia wanted that. She imagined it playing out. A bolt of purple energy blasting forth, burrowing through the door and into the bird before exploding with a mighty boom.

“Work already,” she grumbled. “Stupid spell. WORK.”

Pink light flashed around Mia’s outstretched fingers. It was less than a second, but she vaguely recognised it as the magic circle.

Then it was gone, a bolt of pink energy already slamming into the door. Unlike in her prior daydreams, it didn’t go through the door. Arcane Blast exploded on first contact.

Mia yelped, covering her face as her poor, abused door exploded into a thousand tiny fragments. The pained shriek from the other side was a balm for her tired, aching soul. A grin tugged at her lips.

“Stupid metal chicken.” She stretched her arm, a new glob of mana rushing to it.

Mia grimaced. She had to choose between speed, and control and she went with the first. That meant the glob of mana rolled through her mana channels like a drunk crackhead, kicking and scratching at everything as it went.

The runic model stayed as it was. All she had to do was repeat what she’d done before and another blast of arcane energy would snap out of her fingers.

What did I do? Was it the mental image? Mia frowned. Her gaze locked on the injured bird. Its left wing melted in places, several feathers missing, and the rest all ruffed up and out of place. 

She imagined it again, a blast of energy snapping out and exploding against the bird’s head. 

The bird shook its limp, half-melted wing, then stumbled forward. Its head turned, and the bird’s beady eyed gaze landed on Mia. Where there was malice before, the purest hatred took its place.

Nothing happened, and with no new magic forthcoming, the bird struck out with its working wing. Mia was well out of the strike range, but as it moved, three feathers flew off the avian’s limb and streaked towards Mia.

In a panic, the entirety of Mia’s will flexed and descended upon her runic model. At the same time, she kicked off to the left.

Mia couldn’t follow the sequence of events that followed. She saw a flash of ping, but then all she knew was a horrible pain as something tore into her shoulder and twisted her around, sending her crashing into a wall before flopping down with a meaty thud.

Her face now in intimate contact with the floor, she felt the moment her stupid, lazy spell exploded against her enemy as the shockwave reverberated through the entire floor.

The murderbird didn’t cry out this time, it hopefully couldn’t and was busy being dead. The thought was the only thing that put a smile on her face, though it morphed into a grimace as she made the mistake of twitching on the ground.

“Hsssss,” she gritted her teeth and forced her eyes to open. She didn’t look at her foe, but at her shoulder, which was busy blasting her mind with agonising pain.

She almost fainted when she saw the half-buried feather slick with her own blood sticking out of it.

Mia couldn’t tear her eyes away from it, be it shock or some morbid fascination. There is a major artery somewhere around there, I think. But I’m not a geyser of blood, so I might be good … though maybe the feather is just blocking most of it right now. I might die if I pull it out … I’ll probably bleed out even without that. There is no way I can get to a hospital with a monster horde on the streets. 

A painful shrill sound, like metal tearing, reached her ears and snapped her out of it. 

For a moment, she thought the building’s metal foundation was tearing, but it was far too weak of a sound for that. Then her eyes found the ravaged bird trying to pick itself up from the heap of steaming scrap her spell turned it into.

This spell seemed to have caught it across the chest — not the head as she wanted — and blasted the few iron feathers protecting its meaty body off of it. 

Smells like grilled chicken. Mia noted as she stared at its meaty and charred body. She would have pitied it. It looked like one of those silly birds that was a second too late to jump out of the way of a speeding car on the highway. Then her shoulder sent another wave of agony to ravage her nervous system.

Not good. She had to move. The bird was far from dead, even if it stumbled around and one of its wings hung limply while the other only had one or two metal feathers remaining on it. Mia feared she would be much closer to death by the time the bird’s current injuries did it in. Another spell, a last one … then it’s done. 

She roused her flimsy willpower to push back to pain and tried to get her stuck left arm out from under her body.

A single twitch was all she could manage before she blacked out. Mia blinked, coming back to herself a few seconds later with her cheek back to kissing the dirty floor. Her entire right side pulsed with pain along with the rhythm of her heart.

“MIA, I got it!” came a gruff, but jubilant voice from the distance. “Had to kick the damned door in. Damn Jeff for being so caut-“

Mia couldn’t see him, but a twitch of her now pointy ears told her he just rounded the corner and froze in place. Still, Mia didn’t dare attempt to move again.

She shivered, unable to force the instinctual reaction back as a bone deep coldness spread through her body. She felt faint. Blood loss. I must have bled a whole puddle of it by now. Fuck. I’m so dead.

Laying there, trying to keep herself from blacking out again as pain and that dreadful coldness tried to beat her into a slobbering mess. 

Despite her earlier thoughts, the last thing she wanted was to die. Mia was technically a baptised christian, but the last time she stepped foot in a church was when her little brother was baptised the same way.

The thought of him sent a soul deep icy pain through her that no metal feather burrowed into her flesh could compare to. Gabe, her little brother, who disappeared without a trace just a year ago. He was heading to get painkillers for Mia’s headache when it happened. The police could never figure out how it exactly happened, all they could tell Mia and her mother was that his car was found wrapped around a tree, totalled, and that there was no sign of a body anywhere. Her brother, the one person who’d always been with her, who she could rely on unconditionally, was gone. Just like that. Maybe there is an afterlife and we’ll meet again?

She wasn’t the spiritual kind. Never was and always believed the only thing waiting for her after death was oblivion. Still, with death basically standing above her and raising its vicious scythe, she couldn’t help but hope for something.

Mia’s eyes grew blurry. Were those tears? Or was the blood loss making her dizzy? Probably a bit of both. 

The blurry form of the murderbird stumbling closer to her was still obvious and much too clear for her liking. She’d have preferred not seeing. The monster slowly creeping up on her, without her being able to do a single thing to save her life, was terrifying. Her body shook with a full body whimper, the best she could manage in state.

“AAAARGH!” 

Mia’s eyes cleared as she blinked, just in time to see a giant sledgehammer smash the bird into the ground. 

Mark screamed, and the sledgehammer rose back up, then came down again. And again. And again.

The dwarf grew hoarse and coughed, stopping only after the bird was nothing more than bloody chunks of metal and gore.

Mia saw him fall to his knees before her and mumble something she couldn’t make out. She tried to fight it, tried to stay conscious. She knew that was what people had to do when being as grievously wounded as she was.

But the tension of having a man-eating monster that held her coiled up like a spring was gone. Treacherous relief flooded her mind, and her will waned and shattered. Then she only knew darkness.